No description available.

No description available.

<p> This narrative research ministry project sought to enhance the spiritual life of Calvary Baptist Church in Morristown, New Jersey by strengthening the congregation&rsquo;s commitment to witnessing. Calvary&rsquo;s stated mission is <i>to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ through our commitment to Worship, Word and Witness.</i> While some members may dedicate time to private devotions, the church gathers corporately for a few hours each week to worship the Lord and study the Word of God. Daily, members of the church scatter into the world, which is chock full of opportunities to witness. </p><p> Pre-project congregational interviews and surveys revealed similarities to most 21st Century Christians. The majority of Calvary members were spiritually committed to the concept of witnessing. Yet, very few were actively engaged in the practice of sharing their faith with people they knew. </p><p> Through experiential adult education, Church School students were equipped with tools and techniques that would enable them to effectively witness to friends, relatives, associates and neighbors within their circles of influence. The work described herein represents that part of the effort that could be accomplished during the project implementation phase.</p>

<p> Despite the availability of various substance abuse treatments, substance misuse and the negative consequences associated with it remain a serious problem in our society. Various types of meditation have been evaluated for treatment of substance use disorders, but the research has not drawn any specific conclusions. This may be due to lack of both an equivalent control group and spiritual emphasis. Therefore, the current study included a spiritual emphasis (12-steps) and inner eye concentrative meditation (n=15), a progressive relaxation group (n=10), and a treatment-as-usual control (TAU) group (n=21). Subjects at an intensive outpatient treatment center for substance use disorder were offered either progressive muscle relaxation, raja yoga meditation, or TAU, depending on which branch of the treatment center they were receiving treatment. The meditation technique was a simple meditation technique where the attention of focus remains on the point between the eyebrows. The current study examined changes in substance use, general psychological distress and dysfunction, craving, and 12-step involvement between the three conditions over a 6-week period. Compared to the average of all groups meditation was significant in predicting abstinence from substances, ?2 (2) = 6.39, p = .0115. This finding gives some credence to spirituality being a protective factor against substance use, and suggests the benefits of using non-secular meditations in drug treatment facilities.</p>

<p> The purpose of this constructivist study was to gain information about a criterion sample of atheist social work students concerning their experiences and perspectives of spirituality and curriculum content on spirituality. Most of the twenty-two participants formed their atheist worldviews against the tide of a religious upbringing, primarily due to their assessment of a dissonance between their evaluations of reality and religious beliefs. From the findings and the literature, suggestions are made for curriculum content on spirituality: (a) educators should frame worldviews as constructions and treat mystical elements as cultural phenomena; (b) content should have a professional focus with academically appropriate content; (c) curriculum content should be planned around the goal of training social work students to effectively address issues about worldviews in practice; (d) inclusive language and content should be utilized that covers all worldviews, including atheist and other naturalist worldviews; (e) biases, stereotypes, and privilege should be addressed and countered; (f) specific dialogic techniques should be developed for use in the classroom; (g) educators who will teach content on worldviews should have specific training for teaching material on spirituality and worldviews; and (h) a task force should be formed to create guidelines for curriculum content on spirituality.</p>

<p> Travelers throughout time have attested to the profoundly moving and psychologically meaningful impact of their journeys, disclosing travel&rsquo;s potential as a soulful experience. Yet many travel experiences are better defined as &ldquo;ego-trips,&rdquo; with harmful consequences to host regions, individuals, and even the travelers themselves. Dedicated towards the notion of &ldquo;re-souling&rdquo; travel, this dissertation ventures into the typically unconscious aspects of Western travel. </p><p> Depth psychological in approach, this study employs hermeneutics and the symbolic perspective towards an interpretation of a few of the travel experiences recorded by two luminary psychological theorists: C. G. Jung and James Hillman. By exploring these guiding examples of soulful travel, this dissertation unearths key facets of meaning behind the impulse to travel, identifies certain ancestral and archetypal travel experiences, recognizes the role of ritual in the engagement between traveler and place, and regards the import of the traveler&rsquo;s relationship with Other. </p><p> Archetypal alienated seeking, influenced by a mythos of one&rsquo;s &ldquo;parturition&rdquo; from the natural world and spiritual belief systems, is an unconscious factor driving much of Western travel. Utilizing the symbolic approach can aid travelers in becoming aware of their consumptive and/or imperialistic behaviors, lack of meaning, the relativization of the ego, and the accompanying labor pains that are embedded in the collective history of travel as travail. Recognizing the archetypal nature of the journey can assist in uncovering the longing behind the call to explore. To that end, this study identifies archetypal experiences tied to Western travel&rsquo;s ancestry: the road trip, going south, aesthetic travel, therapeutic travel and poetic travel. Ritual can cultivate the Western traveler&rsquo;s receptivity to the psychological potency of place. Authentic engagement with other people and places can also be fostered through a reverent acceptance of liminality, reclaiming psychological projections, and courageous attendance to that which emerges in dialogue. </p><p> This dissertation concludes by positing that the impulse to travel is related to psyche&rsquo;s desire to be mapped as the Western culture moves away from the parturition myth and towards a new mythos of an interconnected world soul. </p>

No description available.

<p> The role of a Catholic school principal is complex and includes promoting Catholic faith and spirituality throughout the school community. The additional job requirements of spiritual leadership are intentional formation for prospective and novice principals and efforts to sustain spirituality for experienced principals. This qualitative study explored the perceptions held by experienced lay elementary principals of their role as spiritual leader as well as how prepared they felt to serve in this role. Additionally, the study explored suggestions for sustaining principals in their role as spiritual leader. Participants were six lay Catholic elementary principals working in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Data were collected in the form of written reflections, interviews, and a focus group. There were three rounds of written reflections and interviews. A focus group was conducted after the three rounds of data collection. Initial analysis was conducted by identifying emerging themes for each research question. The Four Pillars of Jesuit Leadership Framework was used to discuss the findings. Findings indicated the need for formation and training programs for lay Catholic elementary school principals specifically focused on their role as spiritual leader. Additionally, principals need more supports and opportunities to renew themselves to continue serving as spiritual leaders. These findings support the need for the archdiocese to take responsibility for training and forming lay principals as this responsibility is beyond the scope of the Department of Catholic Schools.</p>

<p>The aim of this dissertation, Do No Harm: Trauma-Informed Lens for Trauma-Informed Ministry: A study of the Impact of the Helping Churches in Trauma Awareness Workshop (HC-TAW) on Trauma Awareness Among Predominantly African- and Caribbean-American leaders in Church of God 7th Day churches in the Bronx and Brooklyn, New York, is to conduct an experimental study assessing whether HC-TAW is an effective intervention to increase trauma awareness among participating leaders?pastors and lay leaders. The study used a trauma-informed quiz as a pretest to measure trauma awareness of 41 participants (participants from churches in the two experimental groups)) prior to participation in HC-TAW. The same trauma-informed quiz was given to participants as a posttest to assess whether change in levels of trauma awareness occurred. A control group of 10 participants also completed the trauma-informed quiz but did not participate in HC-TAW. Chapter 1 develops the purpose, goal, ministry context, and general scope of this study. Chapter 2 provides a review of germane literature related to the need for trauma awareness, nature and impact of psychological trauma, healing trauma, the fundamental elements of trauma-informed care (TIC)/trauma-informed ministry (TIM), and biblical and theological literature advocating for trauma-informed ministry. Chapter 3 sets forth the research methodology utilized in recruiting and selecting participants, description of instrument used to collect and measure data, and a description of how the intervention was executed. Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the findings. Chapter 5 assesses the data and points to strategies for areas of further research of trauma awareness among leaders in the Church of God 7th Day and leaders in other denominations or faith-based organizations.

<p> Common principles, or threads, are studied that are readily found in both spiritual traditions (including religion) and in the field of sustainability. Oneness, Living Simply, Purity, and Care and Heart are examined at length, while Awakening, Awe and Wonder, and Preservation of Life are covered briefly. Opposite principles&mdash;for example, Oneness versus Fracturedness, and Purity versus Pollution&mdash;are analyzed as well. Principles <i>and</i> their opposites are found to have both high and low modes. Each polarity has life-supporting and life-degrading forms. </p><p> Spiritual and religious traditions are grouped into five broad categories. While three of the categories consist of world religions (traditions of Indian origin, Abrahamic traditions, and East Asian traditions), also included are indigenous traditions, alchemy and Hermeticism, and modern spiritual teachings. Sustainability is organized into three categories: ecological science, activism, and sustainable business. </p><p> The common threads between sustainability and spirituality are most reliably found in the segments of world religions that tend toward mysticism, and within teachings that emphasize the cultivation of a greater capacity for just awareness, or presence itself, such as Eckhart Tolle&rsquo;s works. Indigenous traditions shine as examples of societies that have embodied, and in some cases, continue to embody life-supporting principles far more explicitly and fully than cultures that have lost intimacy with their local ecosystems. </p><p> The conclusions drawn based on findings is that wisdom traditions corroborate the idea that the outer world is a reflection of the inner world, and that improving the state of the planet therefore requires personal transformation as a prerequisite to outer improvements. A higher order of intelligence, or nous, referenced in multiple mystical traditions, is indispensable to sustainability work. This and other spiritual principles directly inform sustainability efforts, but to be fully employed they require first-hand, personal experience of spiritual realities. Those who would work toward a genuinely sustainable society are urged to pursue mystical or presence-based spiritual training and experience as a matter of urgency, including direct interaction with nature to facilitate rebuilding intimacy with ecosystems, combined with deepening understanding of ecologically sophisticated indigenous lifeways. </p>